TURNER, TED

born Nov. 19, 1938, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. byname of Robert Edward Turner Iii broadcasting entrepreneur and sportsman who became a major figure in American business in the late 20th century. Turner was the son of the owner of a billboard-advertising company based in Atlanta, Ga. After incomplete schooling at Brown University (Providence, R.I.) and stints as an account executive in his father's firm, he became general manager of one of the latter's branch offices in 1960. After business troubles drove his father to commit suicide in 1963, Turner took over the ailing family business and restored it to profitability. In 1970 Turner purchased a financially troubled UHF television station, Channel 17, in Atlanta, and within three years he had made it one of the few truly profitable independent stations in the United States. In 1975 Turner's company was one of the first to use a new communications satellite to broadcast Channel 17 (later renamed WTBS, or TBS, the Turner Broadcasting System) to a nationwide cable television audience, thereby greatly increasing his station's revenues. Besides TBS, Turner went on to create two other highly successful and innovative cable television networks: CNN (Cable News Network; 1980) and TNT (Turner Network Television; 1988). He also purchased the Atlanta Braves professional baseball team in 1976 and the Atlanta Hawks basketball team in 1977. In 1986 he purchased the MGM/UA Entertainment Company, which included the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion-picture studio and its library of more than 4,000 old films. Many of the black-and-white films he proceeded to have colorized, setting off a storm of protest from the film community and film critics. The large debt burden sustained from his MGM and other purchases compelled Turner to subsequently sell off not only MGM/UA but also a sizable share of his own company, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., though he retained control of it. He also retained ownership of the MGM film library, which contained many Hollywood classics among its holdings. Turner resumed the expansion of his media empire in the 1990s with the creation of the Cartoon Network (1992) and the purchase (1993) of two motion picture-production companies, New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment. In 1996 the media giant Time Warner Inc. acquired the Turner Broadcasting System for $7.5 billion. As part of the agreement, Turner became a vice-chairman of Time Warner and headed all the merged company's cable-television networks. Turner was also a noted yachtsman who piloted his yacht Courageous to win the America's Cup in 1977.